


parallels

by cranes



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Team 7 - Freeform, team seven
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-01-09
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:40:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1126875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cranes/pseuds/cranes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kakashi's never been good at keeping promises.</p>
            </blockquote>





	parallels

This is Kakashi’s most hated place. He's not sure why he comes here so often.

The necklace around his neck is heavy and the flowers hot and clammy in his hands. In the quiet of the field he thinks he can hear someone screaming—” _sensei help! he’s”_ _—_ but the cry of a hawk drifting in the air above drowns it out, and Kakashi drops cross-legged before the memorial.

Jiraiya-sama was always talking about parallels, but Kakashi never saw them. Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura—the only parallel was their blood and their screams and—” _oh god sensei help!”_ —and the smiles on their faces as the life slipped out of their eyes. The ‘ _i_ _t wasn’t your fault_ 's and the ' _don’t blame yourself’s._ If this team were a parallel Kakashi would be dead and Sasuke would be alive and maybe,  _maybe_  Konoha would have a Hokage who didn’t waste away his life sitting in front of a hunk of rock.

He fingers the necklace and thinks about Naruto, and thinks about how he’s Hokage and Naruto isn’t and how Naruto will never  _be_ Hokage because he’s  _dead_. The laugh that breaks the still air is bitter and sharp. No one believed Naruto would be Hokage—but they never thought it would be because he died before he got the chance.

Kakashi desperately wishes this  _were_ some sick parallel. At least then he would have died trying to protect them. As it is, he’s the last surviving member of his team ( _again_ ) and the face that stares back at him in the mirror is mottled with scars and dead eyes and the fading cries of his teammates ( _again_ ).

It’s not like they blamed him. They never did—no matter how much it was his fault, no matter how badly he fucked up. Sakura’s eyes were calm and filled with broken promises when she died. “ _don’t worry, everything will go back the way it used to_ "—and it did, sort of. It went back to the way it was when Kakashi’s hand was lit up with chirping birds and punching a hole in Rin’s chest. Kakashi didn’t kill Sakura, but he failed her just the same. He failed them all so much.

Naruto would have wanted Sasuke to be Hokage, Kakashi thinks. If he’d had just a little more strength in his right arm and he wasn’t paralyzed from the legs down Kakashi thinks Naruto would have handed the Hokage necklace to Sasuke instead. But it was Kakashi’s hands that were wrapped around Naruto’s sweaty, blood-soaked fingers and it was Kakashi’s fist the necklace was curled into with a fervent, “ _The title of Hokage is precious, Sensei._ ”

 _Not more precious than you,_  Kakashi thinks.

Kakashi looks up at the memorial, and he thinks that if he’d lived a thousand other lives and loved a thousand other people, he’d still choose Naruto—he’d still choose Sakura—he’d still choose Sasuke in the end. He’d choose them again and again and again, over every final promise and every last wish and every time he said, “ _i will never ever ever let you die._ ”

He grips Minato’s kunai in his hand and rips the necklace from his neck and touches the names of his students on the memorial for one last time.

See, Kakashi _promised_  Naruto he’d become Hokage for him. But then again, Kakashi’s never been good at keeping promises.

* * *

  _fin_


End file.
